Marriage With Benefits(43)

He’d done that for her. Unleashed her desire from its boundaries and allowed her free rein to take pleasure from his body, exactly as he’d insisted.

And she was taking it. Acknowledging it. Returning it tenfold. It was unbelievably hot.

Her torso undulated in a primal dance, nipples peaked and firm atop alabaster breasts. She threw her head back, plunging him deeper, and long hair brushed his thighs.

Sparkling pressure radiated from his groin. Willing it back, he clamped a hand on her thigh, trying to slow her wanton thrusts, but she bucked against him and the tightness shoved him to the very edge.

He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t wait for her.

But then she came apart and the shock waves blasted down his length, triggering his release. Their simultaneous climaxes fed each other, like oxygen to a flame, dragging out the sensations and flooding his whole body with warmth.

Flooding his body with something else, something nameless and heavy and powerful.

With a sated moan, she collapsed against him, nestling into the hollow of his shoulder, and he gripped her close, absorbing every last bit of warmth, too lost in the lush, thick haze of Cia to move. They were still joined, and he basked in a thrilling sense of triumph.

Only with him could Cia be like this.

Now would be an excellent time to put distance between them. But he couldn’t find the energy. Couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t all that interested in distance when he knew he should be. Never had sex been like that, a frantic and mindless rush toward completion.

Completion, not release. Even this—especially this—was bigger, stronger and more meaningful with Cia.

He’d proven something to himself, all right. Something earthshaking. Something fearsome. This wasn’t casual sex between two people. He’d been making love to his wife.





Nine

In the morning, Cia woke half-buried under Lucas, and it made her smile. One heavy arm pinned her to his chest and his legs tangled with hers, trapping her bottom against his abdomen. His heat at predawn was delicious, warming her sore and stretched body.

It had been a while. Since college, back when she’d still been convinced the right man’s love would heal her. All she’d done was prove sex didn’t equal love, and both were ingredients in the recipe to misery.

If her high school days had resembled most red-blooded Americans’, she might have figured out how to handle relationships then, instead of lumbering into her mid-twenties without a clue. Now she finally got it.

As long as she divorced sex from emotion and commitment, no problem. Divorce rocked.

She unscrambled their limbs without waking him and slipped out of bed to head for a much-needed hot shower. It probably wouldn’t have taken any effort at all to nudge Lucas into semiawareness and then take shameless advantage of him, but she was anxious to get to the shelter. A part of her hoped Pamela would still be there, but in her heart, she knew better. Regardless, the other women would need someone to talk to.

In no time, she dressed and tiptoed out of the bedroom she now shared with the sexy, slumbering man sprawled out across the bed. Later, she promised. No-strings-attached sex was the most awesome thing ever invented.

Pamela was indeed gone for good when Cia arrived at the shelter. The other women seemed dejected and upset. How self-centered was she for being in such a good mood, for shutting her eyes and savoring memories of the previous night? But she couldn’t help it and had to force herself to stop humming three times while handling the most unexciting tasks.

Since she’d stayed so late the night before and arrived at seven that morning, Cia elected to leave at three.

She should be wiped out, but as she drove home, her mind got busy with one topic only—seeing Lucas again as soon as possible. She couldn’t stop fantasizing about him. About the beyond-sexy trio of tattoos down the length of his torso and how she’d like to experiment on him a little to see how many times she could make him explode in a night.

Was it cool to call him and ask about his schedule? She’d almost sent him a text at least once every ten minutes, just to check in. Or say thanks for an awesome time last night. Or something else not so lame, but she had no idea about the rules when the person she was sleeping with was also her fake husband.

They’d done a lot of talking last night. But not once had Lucas mentioned what their relationship would look like going forward.

So frustrating. And ridiculous. It wasn’t as if she could casually ask Courtney the requisite number of days to wait before calling when the guy involved was Cia’s husband. As far as her friend knew, the marriage was still business only, and Cia wanted to get used to the change before admitting anything to anyone.